The initial vision for what would eventually be a highway called Maid Marian Way came almost as soon as the Second World War ended.

In late 1945, the city council decided it needed a new road from the junction of Upper Parliament Street and Chapel Bar down to Canal Street to handle the ever-increasing volume of traffic passing through the centre of Nottingham.

In November 1945, the city council decided to ask Parliament for the go ahead for a scheme likely to cost more than half a million pounds.

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Alderman Bowles dismissed such considerations when he said: “We are not making this road 80 feet wide with double carriageways each 22 feet wide with a ten-foot wide island in the centre and 13-foot wide causeways on either side just for the benefit of those who own property on either side.

“We are making it for the benefit of Nottingham.”

Maid Marian Way in the 1960s

Not everyone agreed. Coun G Twells said that Nottingham needed housing more than roads... but he was a lone voice in the chamber and the proposal went through 46-1. The area between Chapel Bar and Canal Street had already changed dramatically and this new plan spelled doom for much more of Nottingham’s architectural and community history.

Granby Street would disappear, so too the quaintly named Walnut Tree Lane, March Street, Mortimer Street and Paddock Street.

The Maid Marian Way underpass

Historic Castle Gate would be split in two and much of its property demolished.

The house once occupied by Laurence Collin, master gunner of the Castle under Col Hutchinson was in the firing line, as were the picturesque Collin Almshouses built by his son Abel.

Maid Marian Way in 1959 before the creation of the dual carriageway running uphill to Derby Road and Nottingham Cathedral

By law, the plan had to be put to a public vote so a meeting was called in the old Guildhall. It descended into uproar.

After the first of four resolutions had been passed by 182 votes to 156 there were loud voices of dissent. Protesters demanded a recount and when Lord Mayor Ald G E Underwood refused, they marched out of the meeting “to count themselves”.

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Nottingham life

The argument was still over housing. Coun Twells declared: “Until this city has erected 12,000 houses no extravagant scheme of this kind should receive the approval of the city.”

The next step, he urged, would be a petition, forcing the council to organise a city-wide poll.

St Nicholas Rectory in Castle Gate May 1957. It was demolished to make way for Maid Marian Way

In January 1946, the scheme was put to the public vote and protesters led by Coun Swain expected a big turnout and victory.

Ald Bowles argued: “I have not met with a sound argument against the scheme,” but it was defeated by more than two to one, although the local press weren’t allowed to watch the count, being ordered to “get out” by Ald Bowles.

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Sadly, the vote did not carry enough weight to deflect the council, less than 14,000 people bothering to turn out — just over seven per cent of the electorate.

The arguments, discussions and negotiations rumbled on for years. It would be 1963 before work finally got underway and the new road was built.

The barrier between the carriageways of Maid Marian Way was often vaulted by pedestrians

The destruction of this part of Nottingham was given more impetus by the new People’s College which accounted for the Jessamine Cottages, Hutchinson Street, Mortimer Street and Isabella Street, all the names inspired by historical events.

Less than two years after it was completed, it was given a label that has stuck over the past four decades — “the ugliest street in Europe”.

Whether Prof Arthur Ling of Nottingham University’s Department of Architecture and Civic Planning actually used that phrase is open to conjecture.

The subway on Maid Marian Way when it was opened in the 1960s

But his meaning was plain. “Are the architects of Nottingham and elsewhere satisfied with what they have achieved?” he asked. “Is all their effort worthwhile if only a muddle like this is the result?”

Prof Ling wanted to see a co-ordinated plan for city development to prevent the “architectural chaos” that had ensued since the Second World War.

But his words fell largely on deaf ears. Alderman C A Butler, chairman of the city’s planning committee, blamed too much public opposition which, he said, which stopped them acquiring all the properties they needed to prevent piecemeal development.

Since then Maid Marian Way has become an essential but unloved feature of the city.